Fires Burning
by JumpTheGun
Summary: A few short stories I whipped up to show my shipping
1. Chapter 1

Special thanks to Stephen King for inspiring me to write.

Special Thanks to Bryan, Jake, Dylan and everyone at DongBuFeng for getting me into avatar.

(Might just be me, but I almost cried writing this)

Chapter 1

War was awful. Katara needed to experience it first-hand to really, truly understand…know just how awful. I'm not talking about the Fire Nation war; I'm talking about the Purity War that broke out ten years afterwards. Katara and Aang were twenty –two and had spent so little time, what seemed like an instant to Katara, with each other before he left. He had to leave and she knew it, but it hurt so badly. She cried the night he left…she cried. Katara was a strong woman, but it was so hard to just let him go and not know if he would ever come back. And the letters she received from him didn't help. He tried to stay positive and comfort her, but the war was brutal; it was merciless. He had seen many people die during the war; he had come within a hair's breadth of dying himself.

The war was hurting their children too. They had been born only six years ago and were growing up without a father; and they were fully aware that they might never have one. Katara tried to comfort them by telling them stories about Aang's awesome bending and how he was such a strong, wonderful person, but she always ended up crying and bringing the children with her. Her children spent much of the day playing outside the gate, waiting for a letter from their father. They didn't care if the news was good or bad; they just cared that they knew their father was alive.

"Never give up hope." She always told them, "He **will** come back." And at first she believed it herself, but now…now that he had been gone for so long and never once been able to come back, she doubted it. The thought that the love of her life might not come back…might die…It almost made her vomit. It kept her awake at night with a stone wedged in her throat and a knife in her heart.

She was angry, at times, too. She was totally enraged that people had to kill for their religion. All it achieved was pain, pain for everyone. She hated the people who did it, hated them with all the heart that wasn't devoted to Aang. She wanted them all to just die so that Aang could come home; so that all the soldiers away from their families could go home.

But that night, he returned. He came during the night, on a rhino. But he moved slowly and leisurely so that Katara would just think it was another mailman and leave it alone. When he opened the door, Katara came down to see what was going on. When she caught sight of him she swore her heart would explode. She ran and embraced him with all her warmth. They kissed, and for that moment, nothing existed but them. Pressed tightly against each other, nothing else mattered. They lost a sense of reality for that long moment and totally forgot the world outside them. Their bodies were desensitized, numb; the only part of them still working was their heart. And they connected; Aang and Katara's spirits connected. No one said anything, but both of them knew that destiny would keep them together, no matter what.

When they pulled away, they kept eye contact and spoke. They didn't use words; they just knew through the other's eyes what the other was thinking. And they both ran upstairs holding each other's hand.

When they woke the children it was screaming and hugs so tight that they almost cut off circulation. They all fell on the ground in a giant heap and laughed together, in total bliss.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 3

(I almost cried writing this one too)

At first, Suki and Sokka were just in teenage love; they felt true love, but were not mature enough to know. They thought they knew, but in truth they were oblivious. It only became truly apparent when one lost another; when the war broke out.

Sokka was a soldier and so was Suki, so they went together. During combat, they wouldn't let each other out their sight. They would fight like a well-oiled machine, taking down soldiers left and right, and always using each other as a weapon. That fateful day at Ember pass, though, that all changed. A soldier ran up to Sokka with a hatchet and Suki turned around; and from that point on, it happened in slow motion. The hatchet made perfect contact with Sokka's head and killed him instantly, sending his blood all over her. His brains were on the ground and he was dead. He was dead and Suki just watched it, had blood on her. She jump up ferociously and decapitated the man who just killed him, then proceeded to take the hatchet and impale his heart which Suki wasn't there. She picked up the body and ran him off the battlefield, crying the entire way. She took him to the closest peaceful area she could find and fell on his body, crying over his breathless chest, make-up running.

When the battle was over, no one knew where she was until they saw someone walking towards them in the sunset with a body in arms. They could see her face, or even the outline of the Kyoshi armor, but something deep inside told them that it was her. There was silence. There was silence before she got there, there was silence when she walked through them; no one could even begin to speak.

Sokka was buried outside of the large villa where they had once lived together, Suki's bloodied armor still with him, in the meditation garden. The tombstone read,

Sokka

名词〔用于形容词、副词比较之后〕比，比较。任何人助动词副词动词

(More than anybody could ever know)

To have your tombstone written in the ancients' language was the highest honor one could bestow upon the dead; it was all Suki could do to express the love the was bottled up inside of her, with no way to come out. She spent most of her days crying. Though she never got over it, she matured enough to be able to feel happiness and keep living like a normal human. But she still prayed to the spirits that he was happy and that they would meet each other again someday…someday.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Toph had really never felt anything she thought was love, or even a romantic interest, but now she was starting to question it. She had been keeping her eyes on a particular boy who worked in her mansion and whenever he looked at her, she swore she blushed and got butterflies in her stomach. He was a nineteen-year-old boy named Feing, with dark brown hair that was always kept sleek by his family's special herbs and blue eyes that seemed to read you like a book when they looked at you. He was one of her house-keepers so she saw him at least seven times a day and it killed her that of those seven times, she couldn't even talk to him once; she just…couldn't think of anything to say. One day, though, she got sick of it and walked straight up to him, faltered and started talking.

"Feing, I've been thinking…if you want to…" After that, she went blank and went with her first instinct and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pulled him close, and kissed him hard on the lips. At first he was surprised and tense, but he just relaxed and kissed her back. When they finally broke apart from one another, he looked at her straight in the eyes and said,

"Yes" And he strode out of the room, feeling happy.

Toph just stood there, stunned that it had worked. Her gut feeling had driven her to the right direction with love; that never happened. Her mind was flustered; unable to bring together a coherent thought. Her cheeks were cherry red and she started to smile; to beam. She walked to her room and lay down to fester in her fantasies.


	4. Chapter 4

Zuko was Mai's completion; he made her whole. Before him, she had never felt love or really any interest at all. But when Zuko came along, she instantly felt something. It wasn't love at first, just a sort of _bookmark_. He was different; a break in the chain. She felt relief, at first, that there was someone who was different. After the incident at Ember Island, she realized that she did, in fact, love him. It was made apparent to her by the fact that he was angry. He was angry at her. She almost lost him. And that was the first time she was truly afraid. In her room, that night, she cried; the kind of crying that someone does when they are about to die. At that point, she became human. She realized that life was worth living and not just total misery and boredom. There was love and there was happiness to make it worthwhile.

When the war started, Zuko had to work overtime and spent very little time home. She spent almost all of her day reading scrolls; the most wonderful tales that had ever been woven, hoping to bring her beloved off her mind. She would wish for him to come home; wish that they could be like in the books. In the books, everything worked out; love won out, forever and always. She kept telling herself that once the war was over that they would live happily ever after.

When he came home, which happened very little, she would run and embrace him and he would embrace her. They would just be with one another for as long as they could. Mai would read to him and he would sit, enthralled by the tales of Phoenixes, and dragons, and mortal combat between good and evil. But, moreover, he was enthralled by her voice which had matured into a crystalline chime that was like an angelic chorus.

He loved her just as much as she loved him, and it was uncensored in their relationship; they were completely honest. They had learned from their mistakes at the beach and shared their feelings with absolute honesty. Sometimes it made them laugh, sometimes it was an awkward silence, but either way, it kept their relationship alive and burning like the eternal flame.

But when the war ended, Zuko came home smiling and Mai knew instantly what had happened she ran up to him and kissed him with as much as anyone could; they felt the weight of the pain and suffering of everyone in the war lift off their shoulders. It was raw happiness and joy.


End file.
